‘The Greek girl’--began Dick haughtily, and with a manner that betokened rebuke, and which suddenly changed as he saw that nothing in the other’s manner gave any indication of intended freedom or insolence--‘The Greek is my first cousin, Mr. Donogan,’ said he calmly; ‘but I am anxious to know how you have heard of her, or indeed of any of us.’ ‘From Joe--Joe Atlee! I believe we have talked you over--every one of you--till I know you all as well as if I lived in the castle and called you by your Christian names. Do you know, Mr. Kearney’--and his voice trembled now as he spoke--‘that to a lone and desolate man like myself, who has no home, and scarcely a country, there is something indescribably touching in the mere picture of the fireside, and the family gathered round it, talking over little homely cares and canvassing the changes of each day’s fortune. I could sit here half the night and listen to Atlee telling how you lived, and the sort of things that interested you.’ ‘So that you’d actually like to look at us?’ Donogan’s eyes grew glassy, and his lips trembled, but he could not utter a word. ‘So you shall, then,’ cried Dick resolutely. ‘We’ll start to-morrow by the early train. You’ll not object to a ten miles’ walk, and we’ll arrive for dinner.’ ‘Do you know who it is you are inviting to your father’s house? Do you know that I am an escaped convict, with a price on my head this minute? Do you know the penalty of giving me shelter, or even what the law calls comfort?’ ‘I know this, that in the heart of the Bog of Allen, you’ll be far safer than in the city of Dublin; that none shall ever learn who you are, nor, if they did, is there one--the poorest in the place--would betray you.’ ‘It is of you, sir, I’m thinking, not of me,’ said Donogan calmly. ‘Don’t fret yourself about us. We are well known in our county, and above suspicion. Whenever you yourself should feel that your presence was like to be a danger, I am quite willing to believe you’d take yourself off.’ ‘You judge me rightly, sir, and I am proud to see it; but how are you to present me to your friends?’ ‘As a college acquaintance--a friend of Atlee’s and of mine--a gentleman who occupied the room next me. I can surely say that with truth.’ ‘And dined with you every day since you knew him. Why not add that?’ He laughed merrily over this conceit, and at last Donogan said, ‘I’ve a little kit of clothes--something decenter than these--up in Thomas Street, No. 13, Mr. Kearney; the old house Lord Edward was shot in, and the safest place in Dublin now, because it is so notorious. I’ll step up for them this evening, and I’ll be ready to start when you like.’ ‘Here’s good fortune to us, whatever we do next,’ said Kearney, filling both their glasses; and they touched the brims together, and clinked them before they drained them. CHAPTER XXVIII ‘ON THE LEADS’